SAYREVILLE – Victoria Kilpatrick will serve as president of the Sayreville Borough Council for the first time in her tenure.
Kilpatrick, a council member since 2015, was elected council president for 2018 at the governing body’s reorganization meeting on Jan. 1.
After Kilpatrick and incumbent Mary Novak, the winners of the Nov. 7 election, were sworn in to new three-year terms on the council, the governing body named Kilpatrick as council president for the year.
In her remarks, Kilpatrick thanked her family, Sayreville residents and members of the governing body.
“This has been a really amazing journey for the past four years,” Kilpatrick said. “[With my family], I couldn’t ask for a more supportive group of people. There is no way I would be able to do this without them – especially my husband, who has had to deal with me being not at home for what feels like at least five years of doing this and always being completely supportive and understanding when I come home a little tired, a little angry or having to go back to work. He usually doesn’t complain, but thank you. I don’t think I say it enough.
“To my daughters, I just want to say I hope I make you proud every day. You’re the reason I’m up here.
“I want to say that I am just completely humbled by the responsibilities that the people in Sayreville have trusted in me. I will promise, as I always have, to make the best decisions that I possibly can and seek out the most knowledge and information I can before I get up here and I actually make a vote. We are not perfect and I never claimed to be. I know I will make mistakes, but I hope that you realize at this point that I will always do what is in the best interests of this town. I thank you all and I thank my council cohorts for allowing me this opportunity to serve as your council president this year.”
Novak and council members Daniel Buchanan, Steven Grillo and Ricci Melendez also gave remarks at the meeting; Councilman Pat Lembo was not in attendance.
“I want to say thank you to the voters of Sayreville for allowing me this opportunity to serve again,” Novak said. “I’m starting my 13th year up here and I’ve seen a lot. I had six years in the ’90s and this my seventh year in this century. I want to say to all the people who didn’t vote for me, I will still be your councilperson. Please contact me anytime you want to. You might not like my answers all of the time, but I promise to get back to you. I will do whatever I can for the residents and I will do the best I can all the time.”
“Congratulations to Mary and Vicky on their re-elections. I look forward to working with both of you, as well as all the colleagues up here,” Buchanan said. “We do have some daunting tasks ahead of us and working together, I think we can benefit Sayreville. I look forward to working with the new chiefs, the new executive board of the first aid [squad], and all of the residents of Sayreville to make Sayreville a better place.”
Grillo added, “Title – whether it’s councilperson, mayor, assemblyperson, freeholder – it’s a really interesting opportunity. And I use the word opportunity because it’s what we make out of it to serve for the good of the people. And that’s what we’re here to do. We may not always agree and we may sometimes disagree fiercely, but what we’re doing up here is for the good of you [the residents]. Each and every one of you has given us the right and the responsibility and the honor of representing you. We all take this very seriously and we all thank you seriously for giving us the chance to do that.”
“We do make this the best of our ability to take advantage,” Melendez said. “In my case, I have the great opportunity of once again managing the recreation department. I want to thank the recreation advisory board for working with me and going forward working with me this upcoming year, along with the library board. They came up with some great ideas. And in working with [Business Administrator] Dan Frankel and our IT Department is another passion of mine and a great opportunity. We have a lot of projects in place, a lot of future projects that will be coming up. These council meetings will be live [on YouTube] sometime in the first quarter [of the year].”
